


But if a Living Dance Upon Dead Minds

by goaskjane



Series: Doctor Who Series 13 [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13th regeneration, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goaskjane/pseuds/goaskjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first/last in a series about the Doctor in his 13th regeneration and his new companion. Here, the Doctor and Rose meet for the last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But if a Living Dance Upon Dead Minds

**but if a living dance upon dead minds**  
why,it is love;but at the earliest spear  
of sun perfectly should disappear  
moon's utmost magic,or stones speak or one  
name control more incredible splendor than  
our merely universe, love's also there:  
and being here imprisoned,tortured here  
love everywhere exploding maims and blinds  
(but surely does not forget,perish, sleep  
cannot be photographed,measured;disdains  
the trivial labelling of punctual brains...  
-Who wields a poem huger than the grave?  
from only Whom shall time no refuge keep  
though all the weird worlds must be opened?

-e.e. cummings

 

 

Mrs. Rose Smith, previously Miss Rose Tyler, felt something stirring within her, something more than the baby in her belly. It shifted somewhere higher, and felt like a tightening in her heart. She felt her breath leave her all at once. Something was wrong.

 

“John?” She took hold of her husband’s forearm (again wearing that same blue suit just like the old one) from across the console where she was working. “Did you feel that?”

 

He paused as if straining to hear the sensation in her chest, then his brow furrowed as he caught on. “Yeah.” He looked around as if searching for the source but found nothing, of course. “What d’you suppose it is?”

 

“It’s him,” she said breathlessly. “It’s the Doctor.” The afformentioned’s human lookalike leapt immediately into action. He removed his Torchwood nametag and grabbed his heavy brown coat, rushing toward the wall that separated this dimension with Rose’s previous one. For nearly seven years, this Torchwood had been working tirelessly toward bridging the gap between the two universes permanently. There were two of the yellow call buttons hanging on pegs nearby and he grabbed one, making for the Dimension Cannon. But not before Rose could grab the other button.

 

“What are you doing?” he asked, his dark hair already falling into his eyes in the excitement of the moment. “You can’t cross dimensions in your condition! The machinery’s not even one-hundred percent!”

 

“Don’t say _condition_ like it’s an illness,” Rose snapped. “Something’s happening, and as long as I can still walk, I will still go to him.” She stood beside him and switched on the cannon with determination, but she saw his face fall a little. “What?” she asked softly.

 

“What is it about him?” His tone was different than usual, the sad tone he used whenever she mentioned the Doctor. Rose pulled his face closer to hers and said very seriously,

 

“He’s you, and there’s no where I wouldn’t go for you.” The corners of his mouth lifted just the littlest bit and she tapped him playfully on the cheek. “Now let’s go save you.” John took her hand and they pressed their call buttons.

 

 

When they touched down again, it was in a nearly identical Torchwood facility, only one that had clearly been ravaged by something far too advanced and vengeful for their current technology. The walls were coming down and there seemed to be exposed wires everywhere. The sounds of sparking electricity and far-off screams surrounded them.

 

And then, there was the blue box.

 

On the ground before it was a young woman with short black hair who was bent over the prostrate form of a man Rose had never seen before. It was him, and she knew it. She rushed over to them as quickly as she could manage, John only a protective pace or two behind. Rose went to her knees beside the young man and woman.

 

“Who are you?” The woman asked. “Where did you come from?”

 

“I’m Rose,” she replied. “I came from the B Dimension.”

 

“ _You’re_ Rose?” The woman’s face fell apart in awe. She nodded impatiently. “I’m Molly,” she said. “This is…”

 

“I know,” Rose interrupted. She gestured back to her husband. “This is him, too, only human. Long story, not now,” she continued as Molly opened her mouth to ask more questions. “Doctor?” she said to the man. “It’s Rose. Can you hear me? What’s wrong?”

 

“Rose?” He sounded weak, and her chest tightened again. He opened his eyes, blue this time. He was different than she had ever seen him, but that was almost to be expected. He was younger than ever before, barely past twenty by human standards. And with dark red hair.

 

“Doctor, what happened?”

 

“It’s the Master,” he breathed, his words coming out weak from between strangled breaths. “He’s put together an army. Cybermen, a new breed of Daleks, the works. It’s never been this bad before, Rose.”

 

“He did this to you?” she asked. There was no blood that she could see, but she could tell he was pained.

 

“Laser screwdriver.”

“Should have upgraded, mate,” John Smith said to the Doctor. They smiled the slightest bit at each other.

 

“Rose,” the Doctor said weakly. Looking at her large round stomach, his eyes filled with what Rose could only assume was sadness. She had never seen him so close to tears. “You’re…”

 

“Yeah, I know,” she replied smartly.

 

“You shouldn’t be crossing dimensions in your…”

 

“Don’t say ‘condition’, mate,” John interjected with a warning tone.

 

“God, you two are just alike.” Rose shook her head in exasperation.

 

“I’m not exactly sure what’s happening here,” Molly put forth carefully. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

 

“He’s dying,” Rose said with a strangled note to her voice. “But this is different.” She met the Doctor’s gaze and she knew.

 

“Well, can’t you just, you know, regenerate?” Molly demanded, becoming panicked. “Just change! Don’t you have one left?”

 

“I thought so,” the Doctor wheezed, clutching at his stomach. “But I think I know what went wrong.” He looked to Rose again. “Remember when I used my hand to heal myself halfway through the regeneration? When you came back that day that _he_ …” he nodded toward John with an odd expression on his face. Jealousy? “That Dalek shot me and you and Jack carried me back to the TARDIS and I stopped regenerating, I just healed?”

 

“Yeah, you just healed.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. “That one didn’t count.”

 

“I think it did.”

 

“No!” she couldn’t help herself from exclaiming. “That one didn’t count!”

 

“You can’t talk me into another one, Rose,” the Doctor said with a slightly patronizing tone. “This is it.” Rose felt her chin start to quiver uncontrollably and she felt tears on her face. She reached down and put her hands to his face just like she’d done earlier to John. He was so different, and yet…. There was a moment while she sobbed down at him.

 

“But you’re ginger,” she said desperately. “You can’t go now, you’re finally not rude and ginger!” He actually laughed at that.

 

“Finally.” He took another strangled breath and gestured for her to come closer, so that only she could hear. “Rose Tyler,” he said, “I love you, until the end of time.” She sobbed again, not bothering to try and control herself. He took her hand. “Run.”

 

And then he was gone. Just any mortal body on the floor at the end of its rope. But he was so much more. He had to be….

 

There was a thunderous rumbling from overhead, the marching of metallic footsteps and horrifyingly familiar drumming. John took Rose’s hand from the Doctor’s lifeless fingers and pulled her into the TARDIS, Molly following close after them.

 

Molly locked the door, but nothing happened from within the TARDIS itself. It was just a dark control room with no life left in it.

 

“It won’t protect us for long,” Molly said. “It’s no more than a box now. It won’t take the Master long to figure it out.”

 

“No,” John said determinedly. “It’s not just a box, it’s a TARDIS, and it’ll save us now like it’s saved us before!”

 

“But he’s gone,” Rose said feebly, sinking to the cold metal bridge. “There’s nothing left in it.”

 

“There’s me.” John called fiercely. He locked eyes with Rose as he slid into the captain’s chair and hit a button at random with a powerful expression. There was a purr, then a roar from below as the TARDIS reawakened.

 

Molly yelped with excitement and rushed to the console to hit buttons and pull levers the way the Doctor did. Used to.

 

Rose suddenly found herself face to face with her husband as he sank to the floor in front of her. “Can it be me now?” he asked with intensity in his eyes. Rose felt her chest swell with pride. Her husband. Her John. Her Doctor.

 

“It’s always been you.” She kissed him as the TARDIS lurched off into time and space.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the timey-wimey pro/epilogue to a series I'm working on about the Doctor in his 13th regeneration (Benedict Cumberbatch). The new companion, Molly, is introduced fully in Episode 1.


End file.
